By JAMES ANGELOS
OSNABRÜCK, Germany—Having given birth to the Protestant Reformation and the current pope, Germany is now at the fore of a broad effort to foster a European theological tradition for a relative newcomer: Islam.
In a brightly lit university classroom in this small northwestern German city, some 30 German mosque leaders are participating in a government-backed course in inter-religious understanding. The experiment, one of many across the Continent, covers subjects ranging from the Reformation to the German constitution.
James Angelos/The Wall Street Journal
The deadly twin terror attacks in Norway on July 22, carried out by a fanatic who saw himself at war against the "Islamization" of the Continent, has refocused attention on Europe's decades-long reluctance to embrace its Muslim communities. There are more than 44 million Muslims living in Europe, according to a recent Pew Research Center study, about 6% of Europe's population. By 2030, that percentage will grow to 8%, the study projects.
Much of the resurgent popularity of Europe's far right in recent years has been fueled by populist fears that the rise of immigration in Europe—particularly in Muslim communities that remain connected to their native languages and cultures—is washing away European or national cultural identities.
Even in the political mainstream, there is a growing thought that laissez-faire efforts to absorb Muslim populations into European society have gone awry—with troubling political, socioeconomic and security consequences. In a now-famous speech last fall, German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that multiculturalism in Germany had "utterly failed." French President Nicolas Sarkozy and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron have since echoed her remarks.
By tutoring local mosque leaders within national university systems, European governments are increasingly trying to conform the practice of the faith with a sense of their national identities and post-Enlightenment values and traditions, or what some have taken to calling "Euro-Islam." Read the rest on: WSJ.com
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